Review: Samantha Carlise’s Messy, a gem of a play

Messy, written and performed by Samantha Carlisle is a fun and funny, sensual, wry, witty, coming of age, sex-positive play, brutally honest, tucked with discomfit. It is unsettling and as we laugh, we are riveted and confounded. Superb direction by Dara Beth, seamlessly bonding the protagonists together,

Excellent script – super impressed with the play, performance and design. The play is semi-autobiographical and inspired by Carlisle’s own experiences as an online-sex worker and her sexual awakening at her religious school.

Everything was going swell with her theatre career and then the pandemic shuttered the theatre industry. The rent needed to be paid. The character Sam quips: “I am just a girl looking at my landlord, needing to pay my rent,” (or words to that effect – too dark to take notes).

I expected a sex-diary expose of her work as an online-sex worker and that is part of Messy but with a meaty narrative through line, this is a full bodied and impeccably crafted play with yummy self-deprecating humour. Delicious characters. I adored the heckling Afrikaans teacher, with her ripostes.

Fabulous use of accents – riffing off a stand-up comedy aesthetic but very much in a dramatic frame. I am not going to narrative spoil but I will say that she presents a vigorous discourse into sex and intimacy. Love is somewhere in that mess, maybe.  There is an aphorism, attributed to George Bernard Shaw that “youth is wasted on the young.” Whoah, after seeing Messy, I am glad that I don’t have to navigate the terrifying trenches of sex and dating. It is brutal out there and Carlise uncovers so much which is not talked about and which should be talked about. From the gaze of Carlise’s OnlyFans page to the intimacy of theatre, Messy is a sizzling cracker, a gem of a play. This is Carlise’s first play that she has written and I see best South African script nominations coming her way.

Contrary to the title and the inference that she makes on social media, about being “messy”, this play is not a mess. TThe characters are swaddled in a cocoon of pink, very much contained.

I like the fact that the body – Carlise’s body – is the primary mode of expression. With the primary protagonist as the online-sex worker, it would have been obvious to plonk screens on stage, projecting sexting and other modes of online-sex practices. Instead, the body is the container and catalyst of the story which is complex and full of conflicts. Sex and intimacy is not easy territory. Online-sex work is work.

It’s a wordy play and I missed some dialogue as it was coming at us thick and fast. There were some terms and phrases which I am not familiar with and I would love to see it again.

Messy premiered last night, 7pm May 6 at Theatre Arts and is on tomorrow, May 7, 7pm. So this a quickie review – go see it.

The play will be on at National Arts Festival Makhanda – stay tuned for info on that – as part of Spark in the Dark platform at NAF.

Congrats to Spark in the Dark for producing Messy, an exciting new sex-positive play, invigorating a feminine gaze which rails against misogyny and male domination. I loved this play.